Archive for the 'Tankadin' Category

Karazhan

Published at July 16, 2008 in Kara, Tankadin and World of Warcraft. 0 Comments

Its been a while since my last raiding update.. I think my last Kara post was back in December when I was still raiding on my mage.

Since then I’ve retired the mage and replaced it with my Paladin as my main.. I burnt out pretty bad on the mage to a degree that I refused to raid on it anymore. Spamming Frostbolt for four hours  just wasn’t doing it for me (slight exaggeration but that’s how it felt back then)

It took some convincing and a 7 mob pull in heroic Mech, but I was given a shot at tanking Kara for one of our guild runs after a long period of inactivity…

…long story short, alongside another burnt out DPS who had also re-rolled a Prot Paladin, we went back into Kara determined to rock the place and rock it we did!

My last post, we could only drop Attumen, Moroes, and the BBW opera event.. 3 weeks ago, right before I went away to America we cleared the full instance in two nights with the majority of the bosses downed on the first night!

This week will be my first time tanking Kara in 3 weeks, we hope to clear it in one night.. updates to follow :)

Online Diary: Through the Dark Portal

Published at January 11, 2008 in Tankadin and World of Warcraft. 0 Comments

My tankadin turned 58 last night and took his first steps through the Dark Portal.

I had originally intended to fully clear Azeroth before moving on but as usual the lure of Outlands, new gear, rep, and big XP got the better of me.

I threw my mage out there as soon as she turned 58 but was planning on that. I’d all but given up questing on that toon as I was having more fun AoE grinding and instance running at the time. My shammy got to 58 in Winterspring (same as the Tankadin) and I took him through the Dark Portal right away to gear him up and ready for the switch to resto to instance run his way to 70.

It was tough to give up Azeroth as I had set a few goals for myself. I wanted to hit Exalted across the board with all major factions and to clear every zone (or at least quest in every zone) before moving on. I had ventured into Plaguelands on my main but never to quest, and my time in Silithus was limited to grinding essences to craft an Epic robe I wanted (and got). I’m assured I’m not missing much but that’s not really the point. I’ve paid for the content, seems a waste to bypass it.

I’m not too worried however as I have a druid sitting in the sidelines at level 36 I plan on maxing out to PvP with. My main aim with the Tankadin was to level him as fast, efficient, and as profitable as I could, which I have done I think… plus it makes sense to move into BC content ASAP as I can level faster out there than I can in the old 50 to 60 content and get some great gear to go with it. I’ve already replaced my epic shield, dungeon set gloves, Sapphiron’s boots, and random blue chestpiece with some sweet BC gear in just 3 quests and 2 AH purchases.

The druid will be levelled nice and casual I think. I’m in no rush to plough through all that content again. Much as I enjoyed it, I’ve been up and down Azeroth three times now.. I’ve been ganked more times in STV than I care to mention. Enough is enough I think.

The problem I have now is my mining never hit 300 in old world areas. Now I’m faced with the dilemma of going back to grind out the last 60 nodes I need to hit, or dropping the profession altogether for a crafting profession like Smithing. I make a nice wedge on the AH (see future post on Auction Flipping), certainly enough to power-level any profession I see fit to do so that’s not an issue. I’m more thinking of things to do at 70..

I originally had a plan all worked out for level cap… I planned to still play the AH heavily, to do the daily quests as much as possible, fly around farming mining nodes, and I have my fishing and cooking skills ready to be maxxed out soon which gives me more daily quest options to do the cooking stuff. I hear high level fishing can be fairly profitable in the right areas and cooking just makes sense for the great food buffs available. I have JC as a second profession that I hope to make some good money with by cutting gems. All this combined should make me some big coin but the mining is going to hold me back I think.

Everything else I can do as I’m levelling, gaining XP and loot at the same time. Mining is going to see me back in Azeroth doing laps around Burning Steppes or somewhere like that which takes me away from my goals for set amounts of time. I guess the alternative isn’t much better though as another crafting profession is going to eat into my pile of gold whereas mining costs me nothing but my time. Decisions decisions… For the time being I’ll stick to my original plan I think.

Anyway, that’s all for now.. check back soon for more Tales of a Tankadin.

Online Diary: Tankadin

Published at January 3, 2008 in PC, Tankadin and World of Warcraft. 0 Comments

My lvl 49 Protadin Whilst I created the Tankadin with the aim of providing more tanking options to the guild at end game, I levelled it to the mid 40’s, rarely stepping foot in instances and with a guild boost when I did. Speedy levelling was the order of the day so I set my goals and got to it.

It then occurred to me, this alt is level 46, specced tank, geared tank, aiming to be tank at level 70… and yet I have never tanked an instance with similar levelled players. How the hell could I expect to tank any high level instance with no understanding of my abilities within an instance with people attempting to pull aggro off me?

At that I did some reading, made a macro for Righteous Defence to make it work like a ranged taunt (via target of target), set my bars out and adjusted my play style to a more mana conserving, JoC/SoR/Holy Shield/Consecrate standard with the idea of tanking ZF perhaps. After few days of trying to find the time to commit, checking LFG to find no-one available, or being asked to join groups as healer.. I was questing in STV, all thoughts of ZF at the back of my mind when I received a tell from someone asking to heal ZF.

I replied with the standard “would love to but specced prot/geared prot so doubt I’d be much use, thanks anyway” response and got on with my quest. Same person whispers back saying they also needed a tank.. a quick boat ride and a gryphon and I’m at the ZF summoning stone readying up to enter the first instance I have done in months without trusted guildies at my side.

Group is comprised of a Retadin/Rogue/Priest/Warlock and myself as Tank. Starts out well and I manage to get initial aggro on the first few 3/4 mob pulls and hold them down. As soon as I sit to regain some mana the rogue stealth’s and passes me to sap a target in the next group. Mostly this worked ok and I got some experience manoeuvring mobs around to a suitable position to consecrate without breaking CC. At this point it starts going wrong..

Every time I sit to drink this rogue gets faster and faster at the sap despite me asking for a mana break to get at least a manageable amount back to tank with. Eventually the rogue moves from just hindering mana users to regain any, to pulling aggro from bad sap targets. At this point I am painfully aware how much harder this would be had I not made my ‘taunt’ macro. It was already hard enough to tank with zero mana without having to chase mobs around and reign them in.

Despite this, the group works fairly well, the lock see’s the problem and busts out some solid AoE and the Retadin picks up any adds I cant.. we progress in this manner from start to finish with only one or two deaths from the Retadin (which I don’t mind as he ninja’d a one handed mace from me on the first boss and some tanking plate shoulders from the last)

When over I thank the group and HS back to STV and drop out of the group glad to be done with it to a degree. 30 min’s later I get a tell from a level 43 mage asking me if I’m prot specced. I reply yes and he asks me back over to tank ZF. Judging that this guy was 3 levels lower than me I thought I’d give it a go, hoping my higher level would help my tanking somewhat.

This group had another Retadin, two mage’s, shaman healer, all 2/3 levels lower than myself. Right from the go this run looks better. The Frost Mage has a 70 Protadin and knows to wait a second or two for consecrate to go down and the Shaman healer was well on top of his game with a nice amount of +healing. As predicted this run goes infinitely smoother than the last attempt, even the stairs event provided little problems to us……. till I accidentally threw a very idiotic consecrate down before the little goblin bloke opens the gates and we killed him leaving them locked. Everyone has a laugh about it thankfully and we agree to rerun the instance.

One mage and the Shaman has to drop however so we find a feral druid who was prepared to heal for us and a hunter who had never been in ZF before. Again, the run goes well, I got my mace from the first boss thanks to some kind words from the mage to the Retadin convincing him that I should get it (and earning the mage a solid place on my Friends List).. however when we reach the stairs event, the frost mage echoes something I said almost a year ago running ZF for the first time on my mage.. “I bet we can AoE the lot at the bottom”

I smile to myself and agree, as does the Retadin.. all 3 of us charge down the stairs and plow into the mobs, AoE spells blazing.. at that moment the druid exclaims in chat.. “DAMMIT! I wasn’t ready!” and down we go :)

On our return we take the mobs down via AoE in manageable pulls and kill the sub-bosses, but the NPC guys must have died on the stairs as the gate remained locked and no-one to open it so we agree to call it for the night.

All in all I had a great laugh, made some friends, and gained some loot and valuable experience tanking 5-mans. If only all PuG’s could be like that….